exactly for the reason which he supposes. We are weary of seeing the slain killed; we are weary of the lists and tabular statements of parishes containing "no Anglicans;" of others containing "under twenty Anglicans," of others under fifty, and so forth. It is our good fortune at this moment to be saved from the degradation of demonstrating over and over again the iniquity of injustice. A rapid and spontaneous ripening of public opinion has taken place on this topic, and declared with unmistakeable emphasis that the injustice shall no longer exist. It must be admitted that English opinion shirked the subject as long as it could. Everybody felt that the re-opening of it would be nearly certain to plunge the world into a cauldron of heated controversy, to expose every one to a devastating invasion of fanatics opposed to Romish error, of fanatics of the loaves and fishes side of the question, as represented in comfortable bishoprics and rich sinecures. Sober and thoughtful men shuddered and winced at the prospect. After all, who could hope that reason and justice would meet with a success in the future which they had ludicrously failed to attain in the past? Nothing could be added to the unanswerable arguments of Sydney Smith, Hallam, Macaulay, or, for the matter of that, of Lord Lytton and of Mr. Disraeli. What is the good of proving that black is

"The

black if people cannot see it for themselves? eye sees only what the eye brings means of seeing." It is well perhaps that the public eye was trained to discriminate blackness from other shades in other directions than that of the Irish Church-to practise itself in tracing the lines of elementary justice in admiring foreign rebels against ecclesiastical oppression. However, no one could tell how far this training or any other had gone to enable the popular mind to take a fresh unbiassed view of the subject again. Above all, no one could tell how far the manifest spread among the cultivated classes of a secular tone of thought had imperceptibly honeycombed the old ramparts and bastions of Protestant orthodoxy. And now we see that it had gone further than could have been expected, that for the first time in our modern history the old No Popery appeal has been made in vain. It must be admitted that under the smooth surface of the last thirty years reflection has not been idle-an encouraging fact amid much which is discouraging.

As regards the so-called arguments in support of the Irish Church, they cannot be answered because they do not exist. This is one of the few cases, if it be not, as I believe, the only case having to do with the complicated phenomena of society and politics, in which all the arguments are really

Nothing else could have done it, not Smith's wit and ridicule, nor Macaulay's invective: none but inmates of the stronghold could have so revealed

As a regular defence is impossible, recourse is had to diversions. When Englishmen dwell on "

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as well as apparently on one side. Experience generally warns us to be on our guard against such cases. Too clear a case is always more or less suspected. It can hardly be doubted that the unparalleled injustice of the Irish Church has benefited that institution through the impulse which prompts men to disbelieve that all the reason and argument can belong to one party in a dispute. And this impression is never removed till we read the apologies of the Establishment. The most scrupulously cautious and sober attacks upon it always wear such an incredible air of exaggeration, amounting almost to caricature, that our judgment and impartiality are disturbed and uneasy. But if any one wants to make up his mind once for all on the subject, he has only got to read a few charges by Irish bishops, or pamphlets penned by Irish archdeacons. The real use of attacks now on the Establishment is to provoke those invaluable replies which at last have convinced Englishmen, in spite of themselves, that for once nothing is to be said on the other side. Nothing else could have done it, not Smith's wit and ridicule, not Macaulay's invective: none but inmates of the stronghold could have so revealed its weakness.

As a regular defence is impossible, recourse is had to diversions. When Englishmen dwell on the